First of all, I find it amusing that when countered with evidence how swiftly you retreated from your initial claims e.g
- You claimed there are 6 "prop" airframes for official visits with nothing else at HESA floors but when proved with serials and pictures that there are atleast 18 (minimum guess) and highest 24 (I am myself not convinced).
- You claimed that there was some level of serial production of SaeghehI/II with 2 squadrons (like Kowsar or its future will be same) while the serials confirm some 6-7 testbeds with single and dual seater versions built over a period of 11 years.
- You also claimed that I said that Kowsar is getting local BVR package which you failed to provide evidence for. The only post I ever made was for Babaei missile industries testing Maghsoud ARH-LR-BVR for F-14AM fleet.
Also you just showed 25 years of tinkering with the F-5 with less than 17 total aircraft built (if your guesses are correct)
- One can thank Shahi legacy of reliance upon imports + low IQ Akhoonds leading R&D projects in the 90s and 2000s. But this was not a loss at all. Like I said before thanks to this "tinkering with F-5" even if we get zero fighters from Russia or China, we can still manage to give IRIAF some 200 x 4.0 to 4+ generation interceptors built from scratch at home within the next 7-8 years if we throw in the money. That, without even importing a bolt. Yes they will still be relevant since nobody will be flying F-22 and SR-72 in the Iranian neighborhoods before you pull that argument. Besides, Our MALE UCAV fleet is the largest in the entire region. It will grow and evolutionise along the way.
Now we know the Turks like to exaggerate and probably engage in propaganda more than any other nation in the Middle East. But one can see why IRIAF is not heavily invested in Kowsar. We can blame lack of funding (probably true) we can blame lack of mass production facilities (also true) and we can blame mentality shift of not viewing IRIAF as critical to overall defense. Nonetheless, at the end of the day when Iran puts its mind to something (Bavar-373) (RQ-170 reverse engineering) it is able to turn a project into reality on a timeline similar to Western armies.
- Turkish have learned to do feel-good propaganda presentations very well. Altay after 10 years of slides and presentations cant find a market other than Qatar ensuring Turkish political support through a mini purchase order. Their own army won't replace 65 years old M60 Patton with it. Other socio-political simp countries they have, won't take it either. The same story goes for their Atak129 Helis that everyone checkout but won't order. So take this Unmanned-F-22 "Mehmet-raptor" with some grain of salt. They are working on these platforms, kudos to them, but what makes you think we are not? Keep Iranian money+R&D rankings in mind before assuming things.
- It's a simple strategy that other nations failed to read. Iranian strategists saw that even if they procure some 600 x 4th generation jets from Russia and China for 40-50 Bln USD (Combination of MIG-29SMT/35, SU-27SK/30SM/35S, J-10C) in a conflict with the US+Jewrab alliance the airbases will be gone in few days by American 2000 x Tomahawk+SOW strikes. There will be air battles in which we will create new Jalil Zandi and Abbas Dowran like heroes but to what avail when you will lose the war? Hence the money went to create the "Fangs of Iran". Today, an enemy of Iran will be seen from 2000 KM away by our OTHRs, tracked and locked on outside Iranian borders and will be taken out with layer after layer of mobile LORADS/SHORADS or growing aerial interceptor force, all the while the IRGC's underground Missile Silos will breathe fire and the enemy's own bases, infrastructure, will be gone even if its 2000-2500 KM away. Their ships won't lurk closer than 1000 KM, their bases wont be safe from loitering UCAVs. Thanks to this unconventional strategy now we can even have some 7-8 fission devices from known enriched quantities in a matter of weeks if we seek to. So we killed the chances of being attacked with this development. Could we have achieved all this had we neglected this strategy and just went for 600 4th generation aircraft for 40-50 Billion USD? take the example of the Egyptian berserk shopping spree these days. They are taking the Shahi route financed by Riyadh. If in a few years Akhwan kicks out Sisi through a revolution and goes all anti-American how long this large Misri AF will operate you think?
Now here is another idea, why not make Kowsar II a drone? The removal of the pilot section will allow for bigger radar and more fuel. The reduction of support systems will lighten the aircraft and possibly allow heavier avionics suite and weapons layout.
To me that would make a little bit more sense at this point. Personally I been calling for a delta wing or flying wing UAV bomber similar to Sofreh Mahi mixed with RQ-170. But a pilotless Kowsar would be a nice step.
- IRIAF's and HESA decision-making has been in hands of egomaniacs. Have you read Tom Cooper's recent detailed articles about the complicated kind of decision-making structure in Tehran? He called Khamanei quite powerless in front of other self-centered institutions which is one of the reasons the SU-35S deal has not been officially announced yet despite both sides agreeing. Yes even Cooper thinks that this deal of SU-35S (72 total) is being challenged from within Iran, probably within MoD who are calling this a waste of money against their own projects of Missiles/AD etc. The worst era was under war-hardened soldiers turned managers (wtf??) like Vahidi and Dehghan who knew nothing about defense production. All the clownery and PR stunts you find happening in Iranian projects was done under their noses during Ahamdinejad and early Rouhani years. Things improved under Hatami and his nominated Ashtiani is doing brilliant work. Its not about IRGC and Artesh its about the background education of an individual.
If Kowsar ment to be some avionics suite for a future fighter, the avionics aren’t that advanced. Certainly not a 4++ in its current format. To me the project has always been “if it’s 2040 and all our planes are grounded and Russia and China refuse to sell us anything can we at least produce something to keep the skies with aircraft”. That and a F-5 modernization program similar to Karrar for Iran’s extensive amount of T-72 tanks supply.
- That avionics package is likely the most advanced thing in the entire IRIAF right now. Lets compare it to our MIG fleet. So Bayynat-II is ditto of Grifo 346 which GRIFO's/NRIET's most advanced product just below Grifo-E/KLJ AESA series for 4++ or 5th gen. It's extra light, long-range A2A tracker with SAR mapping, ECM/ECCM control. It easily stomps over the ~400 kg Soviet era heavy RLPK-29 of our MIG fleet which won't even see a Kowsar-sized thing (1 m2 RCS) in the sky beyond ~50 KM by the time they will themselves be fired upon. The plane is laced with flight+weapon+navigational management computers which MIG lacks. It also has a modern Nav-comm-datalink package that MIG lacks. Last but not least it has a modern e-warfare suite from SAIRAN with a long-range RWR+ECM+Jammer that was copied/modernized from F-14A's AN/ALR-45/67. MIG uses a famous failure SPO-15 which was thrown out in 9.13 Fulcrum versions in favor R Pastel system. Some people think IRIAF MIGs lacked RWR which resulted in them being planned to have IEI RWR. Apart from this the MIG also lacks jammers, ECCM. It has no chance of getting HMD that Kowsar can get just by ordering few from SAIRAN which also produced Fatter all-aspect IR seekers, so the enslavement is easy. So this is MIG ... I won't talk of the rest of the circus. We can do a product-to-product comparison to know better. This avionics suite beats everything else we have. If MIG-29 gets an MLU, I would rather have their entire soviet era layout thrown out and be replaced with whatever Kowsar-II will have to give them some relevance in modern combat instead of being the toothless oldies that they are becoming now.
Now here is another idea, why not make Kowsar II a drone? The removal of the pilot section will allow for bigger radar and more fuel. The reduction of support systems will lighten the aircraft and possibly allow heavier avionics suite and weapons layout.
To me that would make a little bit more sense at this point. Personally I been calling for a delta wing or flying wing UAV bomber similar to Sofreh Mahi mixed with RQ-170. But a pilotless Kowsar would be a nice step.
- Unless we have a 1.4-2.0 mach, 45000 ft/min climbing UCAV pulling 12 G's with 100+ km tracking range for BVR attack, the manned fleet is not going anywhere. The attack aircrafts SU-24/22 or good for nothing F-7N/Mirages/F-5 will be replaced by improved KAMAN-22/Fotros and Shahed 171.
This ever-growing unmanned fleet will be doing SIGINT/ELINT, launching AShCM/LACM and A2A missiles (future) too. We already have Jet powered stealth ones with 0.001 m2 and internal bays while some carry around SAR/ECM pods can launch 200+ km ranging LACM. So we may turn from manned age to unmanned before others around us.
